Cupertino FBLA Launches Three New Local Initiatives

Cupertino High School FBLA’s (Future Business Leaders of America) Community Service Project recently started a buddy program at Sedgwick Elementary School, where 3rd graders created handmade and heartfelt crafts over the course of 4 weeks to be delivered to Bay Area Cancer Connections (BACC), a cancer resource center located in Palo Alto.

The Community Service Project, named Project CARE aims to positively impact the lives of those affected by cancer and raise cancer awareness in the local community. This year, project CARE is partnering with BACC in order to directly make a positive impact on the lives of cancer patients. Project CARE has four components- C represents changing and positively impacting the lives of cancer patients by implementing Zumba classes and a buddy program at Sedgwick elementary school and A represents advancing BACC’s environment and resources by creating inspirational posters and mementos to be hung up and distributed at BACC. R represents raising cancer awareness through creating a cancer awareness video and having guest speakers at Cupertino High School, and E represents empowering cancer patients through creating a “words of wisdom” book to be distributed at cancer centers and hospitals.

One of the main components of Project CARE is to positively impact cancer patients’ lives by creating a buddy program between 3rd graders and cancer patients. To do this, the project chairs reached out to 3rd grade teachers at Sedgwick Elementary School regarding starting a 4 week long program for students. The program began on January 24th and ran every Thursday for 30 minutes until February 14th.

On the first week of the program, 3rd graders were given a short presentation about what FBLA is, what buddy program is focused on, and the activity of the day. The week’s activity was writing letters to cancer patients, and to do this, the students wrote thoughtful letters including an introduction about themselves, kind messages, and hand-drawn illustrations with color. By collaborating with one another and asking the volunteers for help, students were able to write hand-written letters to send to the cancer patients.

During the second week of the program, the third graders created individual handprint cutouts and continued to work on their letters to the patients at BACC. First, they began by tracing their hand onto any colored paper they wanted. Afterwards, they wrote a kind message to the people at BACC on the handprint and cut it out. With the time left over, the students finished working on their letters by making final edits and proofreading their work.

On the third week, the volunteers introduced a new craft to the third graders. During this week, the third graders created heart cutouts and decorated them with motivational quote printouts that the project chairs found online. Additionally, the students added their own personal touch to these hearts by adding sequins and decorating using any other supplies. The hearts were all in teal or pink colors to symbolize breast and ovarian cancer awareness. This activity allowed the students to work together and create a nice memento for cancer patients at the same time.

During the last week, the students created paper packages to hold all their individual crafts and deliver to the cancer patients. The project chairs provided the students with a template to follow and the students followed the given instructions. To personalize the boxes, the students added their name and a heartfelt comment to make the overall gift more positive as a whole. Once the boxes were complete, the students attached their letters and put in their heart and handprint cutouts.

After the program occurred, all crafts and letters were delivered to cancer patients at Bay Area Cancer Connections, creating a positive impact on the lives of those affected by cancer.

Cupertino High School FBLA’s (Future Business Leaders of America) Partnership With Business Project has recently started a job preparedness program for students with different abilities in San Jose. This year’s project has partnered with InFUSE, a nonprofit dedicated to helping children with different abilities integrate into our communities, and the students have been collaborating with the nonprofit since August to promote and expand InFUSE’s services. During this project, the high schoolers organized a variety of events and performed a multitude of tasks, ranging from organizing fundraisers to conducting competitor analyses. The students also organized a Disability Awareness Week at Cupertino High School to raise awareness at their school of the various disabilities children have and ways their school’s students can help these children become more involved in the community. During this week, they put up posters around the school regarding the respectful language to use when talking about or to someone with a disability, handed out ribbons of various colors to represent different disabilities and put up posters to give information on the disabilities, organized a guest speaker event with the founders of InFUSE, and set up activities to help students understand what it is like to have a disability and promote InFUSE.

The most recent development to this project has been the initiation of a new program at InFUSE. This pilot program is the Job Preparedness Program, which is focused on preparing the older students of InFUSE for seeking jobs once they graduate high school. The 6-week-long program covers many different topics, ranging from effective speaking skills, to writing résumés, to collaborating with a team in a workspace.

The program is currently focused towards the students at InFUSE who are in 12th grade and will soon be looking for jobs. There are 6-10 students participating in the program currently. The Job Preparedness Program is open to students from outside the InFUSE community, and was promoted within Cupertino High School, as well as the Evergreen school district. Each session of the program runs for an hour every Sunday, with volunteers from the Partnership With Business Committee creating specialized lesson plans for the students and teaching the topics themselves.

The first session involved a series of educational games and activities to teach the students the importance of communication in a collaborative setting. The students then watched a video at the end of the first session which highlighted the importance of communication and collaboration in a workplace and had a discussion on what they learned throughout that day’s session. The second session focused on speaking skills. The students chose one of three topics (about the importance of time management, collaboration, or organization), and drafted a speech about the chosen topic. They were provided with the framework for the speech and were helped to fill in the worksheet. They then focused on speaking and presentation skills and delivered their speech to the rest of their peers and their parents at the end of the session to demonstrate what they learned. The third session is scheduled for Sunday, February 16th, and the students will create their own résumé to apply for their dream job. At the end of the 6-week program, the students will participate in mock job interviews with the students from Cupertino High School, putting together all the skills they learned throughout the program.

With the program running successfully so far, both the parents of the students and the Partnership With Business project members can see a visible difference in each of the students at InFUSE. They hope to continue this program in the coming years and make a lasting impact on InFUSE and the students with different abilities.

Fifth graders selling their products at the Holiday Marketplace Fair.

Cupertino FBLA members volunteered at Sedgwick Elementary School for six weeks, teaching students about the American Enterprise System and concepts including marketing, finance, and networking, aiding them in the creation of their own businesses. At the culmination of these lessons, they held the Holiday Marketplace Fair, where each business sold homemade goods such as garlic bread, necklaces, and slime, raising $1180.01 towards Sedgwick’s Science Camp funds.

In the first lesson, Cupertino FBLA members briefly introduced the Holiday Marketplace Program to the fifth graders, giving them an overview of activities for the six-week program. Students then learned about different types of businesses, the differences between goods and services, and the various components or attributes of successful business to serve as guide in designing their own businesses. After splitting up into four to five member business groups, the lesson concluded with a game of telephone charades, teaching students the importance of communication and teamwork.

In the second lesson, students were introduced to the American Enterprise (AE) System through a two round simulation, where the class was divided into buyers and sellers. In the first round, sellers were limited to selling paper trucks and were given rules, such as coloring the truck red and the wheels black and selling products at a designated price. Buyers were limited to buying from one specific company. In the second round, sellers had the freedom to sell bikes, cars, trains, and trucks at any price and with any color and buyers were allowed to purchase goods from any company, emulating the Free AE System. Through the simulation, students learned the various characteristics of the AE System, including economic freedom, voluntary exchange, private property, profit motive, and competition.

In the third lesson, volunteers taught students basic marketing and design skills. Students learned about establishing a target market, building a brand through logos and slogans, and designing successful logos by comparing different designs and using different colors and fonts. Students then participated in a fun game of Logo/Slogan Wars where they identified logos and slogans of prominent business such as McDonalds, Apple, and Nike, drawing inspiration for their own businesses’ logo and slogan creation. At the end of the lesson, students were given time to create their company name, logo, and slogan.

In the fourth lesson, Cupertino FBLA members educated students on the importance of personal finance. Students learned to differentiate needs and wants in a sorting game, where they divided magazine cutouts, photos, and drawings into two separate piles. Students were also taught about budgeting and 52 students participated in the Personal Money Tracker Challenge, where they recorded money earned and spent for two weeks.

In the fifth lesson, students learned about networking and improved public speaking skills through a series of activities. Volunteers taught students about making a good first impression in the business world and practiced these skills in an activity where students went around the room giving each other handshakes and introducing themselves. Students also learned about, created, and presented their own elevator pitches for their companies. Before presenting their elevator speeches, students practiced speaking loudly with good enunciation in a tongue twister competition and practicing with a pen in their mouths.

In the sixth lesson, students played a review Kahoot, testing their knowledge in topics learned over the six-week program. Students determined the pricing of their products after researching the costs of supplies and the retail value of a comparable product. Students also worked on posters for the Holiday Marketplace Fair that included the company name, logo, slogan, product, and price.

At the final Holiday Marketplace Fair, peers, teachers, and parents were in attendance, and the 105 fifth grade students selling homemade products collectively raised $1180 towards their science camp funds, making the Holiday Marketplace Program a large success.